Sport-utility vehicles, minivans, and other crossover vehicle designs often include second or third row seats which may be adjustable from a seating position for accommodating passengers to a stow position to provide cargo space.
It is often desirable to provide a relatively low load floor height to minimize the lift height of objects loaded into vehicles. It is also often desirable to maximize potential vehicle cargo volumes. A further vehicle design objective also often includes minimizing or eliminating angled and or multi-leveled load floors that might result from folding auxiliary seats to their stow positions.
Existing auxiliary row seats often include articulating mechanisms which re-position the seat cushion and associated support frame (together, “the seat base”), such as, for example, by moving the seat base forward and/or tipping the forward end of the seat base downward, to allow the seatback to achieve a more flattened and/or lower position when the seatback is folded forward over the seat base. However, undulating vehicle floors, particularly in rearward seats located over the rear wheels, often limit the space under the seat and present a positioning challenge for meeting load floor design objectives for folding seats.